Why Painting A Pet’s Fur Is Difficult

Apr 20, 2016

Why Painting A Pet’s Fur Is Difficult

www.petsinportrait.com -A cat portrait – cat portraits from photos

Painting a pet requires the capturing of elements such as character and emotion especially if the artist knows his trade well. Pet portraits can be a challenge to pull off because these elements have to illustrate finesse and perfection for the piece of art to appeal to a buyer or a client. A pet’s fur is one of the most difficult features to be accurately captured on an artist’s canvas or piece of paper. This is because fur has texture which is made up an amount of hair follicles arranged on a certain way depending on the animal in question of course. For most artists, the art of painting or illustrating this fur texture onto a canvas is not easy and discussed below are some of the reasons why that’s.

Firstly, trying to capture the fur’s texture requires a complex method where the painter carefully draws strands in a parallel manner.
The fur is lightly drawn on the canvas in the direction which it will grow which is dependent on the pet in question. Cat’s fur is the best to capture in a painting as opposed to a dog’s. Cats are cleaner and their fur is well-kept due to their self-grooming nature. The fact that this technique is time intensive makes it quite difficult and a fairly good artist would require weeks if not months to successfully finish one or two pet portraits. This argument makes this level of art a reserve for those artists who have mastered enough skills and knowledge to capture tiny detail which will eventually contribute to a bigger picture.

Secondly, painting a pet’s fur requires a realistic vision and talent so that the final product is actually impressive. An artist has to take their time and do background research on the animal they are about to paint. They have to know in what direction the pet’s fur will go if stroked in a certain manner so that they can easily decide how to capture the fur’s elements on to the canvas. To do this successfully, an artist has to draw individual strands of hair in a continuous manner to capture its pattern, disposition and make it realistic in the process.

Finally, this process requires specific paint brushes in order to lightly draw the pet’s strands of fur. The best brush for this process would be a dry brush which has a light, spiky and damp touch so as not to interfere with the pattern or texture while layering the painting. By use of this type of brush, an artist will delicately draw light parallel lines on his canvas to represent the fur. Not many artists know this technique and if they used regular brushes to paint fur, it would lack a light feel or texture to it. This is a challenge to aspiring artists most of whom are self-taught.

The difficulty in painting a pet’s fur emanates from the lack of technique or skill to do this nature of high-level art. The main skill required is attention to detail and patience due to its complex nature. One also ought of exude a great deal of persistence and perseverance because the art form is a bit delicate and should be treated as such. However, if an artist is able to overcome these difficulties, then he/she will no doubt be capable of painting expressive pet portraits.